Lighthouse of the Week, October 20-26, 2024: Geomundo Island, South Korea

 

This week's lighthouse is on an island group, the Samsan Islands, south of South Korea. It was an important location, so the Brits established Port Hamilton on the island of Geomundo. This lighthouse is thus both the Port Hamilton lighthouse and the Geomundo Island lighthouse.

Here's where it is.  Zoom much further out to see where South Korea is.

The Lighthouse Directory says:

"2006 (station established 1905). Active; focal plane about 95 m (312 ft); white flash every 15 s. 33 m (108 ft) hexagonal cylindrical concrete tower with lantern, gallery, and a large hexagonal observation deck. Fog siren (blast every 50 s). Entire lighthouse is white. ... This new lighthouse was completed in August 2006. It is clearly designed for public access, but we have no information on the schedule. Located adjacent to the historic lighthouse."

As you might have guessed, there's a historic lighthouse too. They are both in a very striking location, on a narrow ridge overlooking the ocean.

See what I mean below. The historic lighthouse is visible in the pictures, particularly the second and fourth pictures.

 

Black and white and Rosa

 

I sure like British glamour model Rosa Brighid. I don't subscribe to her OnlyFans, where you can definitely see more of her, and occasionally on Twitter (oh, I'm sorry, X) she shows more of herself, but I stick with Instagram, where she's both flirty and fashionable, and provides lifestyle advice.

And she's also sometimes nude in an artsy way, as shown here. 

Totally natural, too. Lots to like. 

And this is ... what, exactly?

 

On Mars, the Perseverance rover is climbing higher. On its way up, it spotted a striped rock.

(Ha.)

The question is: what is this rock, composition-wise, mineralogical-wise, formation-wise, origin-wise?  They didn't stop to check it out, so now they have to speculate. 

One thing to note:  it's not covered by much dust. So maybe it arrived where it is currently perched recently, geological-wise.

 A Striped Surprise

"While driving across unremarkable pebbly terrain, beady-eyed team members spotted a cobble in the distance with hints of an unusual texture in low resolution Navcam images, and gave it the name ‘Freya Castle’. The team planned a multispectral observation using the Mastcam-Z camera in order to get a closer look before driving away. When these data were downlinked a couple days later, after Perseverance had already left the area, it became clear just how unusual it was! ‘Freya Castle’ is around 20 cm across, and has a striking pattern with alternating black and white stripes."

They think it's possible it rolled down from higher in the crater, which is where Perseverance is going. So be on the lookout for more striped rocks.

My first nice thought about this is that it's gneiss, and I'll stop now.

 

Silly, unserious people deny this is happening

 

Ocean acidification is happening. It has to be. The oceans are continuing to absorb more CO2, which has kept atmospheric concentrations lower than if they weren't doing that, but by absorbing it, they become more acidic. That's basic seawater chemistry.

And it's getting worse, of course. But how much worse is somewhat scary.

World's oceans close to becoming too acidic to sustain marine life, report says

A new report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research details how a crucial threshold for ocean acidification could soon become the seventh factor breached – out of of nine – considered critical for the planet's ability to regulate life-sustaining natural systems. The growing acidification of the planet's oceans is due to ever-increasing emissions of carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels, which the oceans then absorb.

"Acidic water damages corals, shellfish and the phytoplankton that feeds a host of marine species. This means it also disrupts food supplies for billions of people, as well as limiting the oceans' capacity to absorb more CO2 and thus help limit global warming."

It constantly amazes me (and distresses me, so much that I've given up engaging with some of the more ludicrous deniers) that people can deny this is happening. But they do.

Got too much tofu?

 

If you make tofu, apparently there are leftovers. (Sometimes when you eat it, too.) This place in Washington that makes tofu found a good way to use the leftovers, rather than just dumping them. The leftovers consist of soybean pulp and tofu whey. 

Tofu manufacturer turns waste into energy with a biodigester

"The company [see below] is partnering with the Seattle-based energy company Chomp, which installed what’s called an anaerobic biodigester behind the factory.

Lukoskie: “Imagine it’s like a compost bin, but it’s enclosed.”

Any type of food waste – in this case, damp soybean pulp and leftover liquid called whey – can be put inside the biodigester’s large sealed tank, where bacteria break it down in an oxygen-free environment.

The process creates fertilizer that can be sold to farmers, as well as renewable biogas that can be used for energy in place of natural gas – a fossil fuel."

Since this company is doing such a good thing, I'm featuring them here.

Island Spring Organics

Have some!

Egypt in the Bronze Age

 

I really like amazing archaeological finds. And this is one of the more recent ones.

3,200-year-old ancient Egyptian barracks contains sword inscribed with 'Ramesses II'

"In addition, the archaeologists discovered the remains of weapons, including a bronze sword inscribed with the name of King Ramesses II (ruled circa 1279 to 1213 B.C.). The sword was found in a small room in the barracks, near an area where an enemy could try to infiltrate, an indication that this sword was intended for fighting and wasn't just for show, El Kharadly said.

They also found two inscribed limestone blocks; one has a hieroglyphic inscription that mentions Ramesses II, whereas the other cites an official named "Bay," the statement reported."

I'd give them my leaves

 

This is short, but cool;  a company in Europe makes paper out of leaves, saving trees in the process.

I'd give them all of mine. Even better, they could come and get them off my lawn and take them back to the factory themselves.

European cities give their dead leaves to this startup to turn them into shopping bags and paper

"Using a combination of chemical and mechanical processes, Releaf produces one tonne of cellulose from 2.3 tonnes of dead leaves.

It would usually take 17 trees to produce the same amount.

Cities around Europe give Releaf dead leaves they have collected off their streets, instead of burning them as many places usually do.

“We are working only with the leaves that we are getting from the cities because we cannot use the leaves from the forest. It's not easy to collect them in the forest, and there is no need because there's an ecosystem."

Come and get 'em

Alexis Ren, artistically posed

 

Model, actress, influencer, etc. Alexis Ren, who is also a well-known gorgeous woman, posted a picture to Instagram in which she had apparently decided to take a nap sans lingerie, in fact, sans anything.  The pose was such that while the lack of garments was apparent, nothing of censorial significance was bared (this being Instagram, of course). 

Despite the outright sexiness of the shot, what struck me was the artistic contrast in it, though I'm not sure it was intentional. The linearity of the bed, the bed frame, the walls, even the bookshelves contrast geometrically with the feminine curves of Alexis. It's very well done.

Of course, Alexis is marvelous in this pose, as would be expected. In fact, I don't remember any poses in which she was anything less than marvelous. (I reviewed my archives, and I have featured Alexis a couple of times, and also sometimes on a bed. That's a good theme, in my opinion.)

The Grand Canyon has caves and ... wow

 

I don't remember how I grabbed this link. But when I did, I was astonished. 

I've been to the Grand Canyon once. I had no idea it had any caves. I'm not sure how many people know it has caves like this.

Ancient Bats: Inside the Grand Canyon's Longest Known Cave

It appears that this cave doesn't have a name. What it does have, however, is really old bats. I'm not sure if they should be called fossils or not. But they are old.

" "When I first looked at the bats, I was totally amazed," [professor of wildlife ecology at Northern Arizona University Carol] Chambers said, during a recent interview. She was instantly sold on helping to determine the bats’ ages, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the initial funds for radiocarbon dating were secured. With the wheels in motion, she spent hours reviewing Thomas’s and Oswald’s photos, agonizing over which bats to sample.

"I was trying to figure out what looks old," she said, eventually deciding on nine bats representing five different species. "It turned out everything was old." The samples ranged in age from 3,700 to 31,000 years before present — shockingly ancient. "I thought, holy smokes, we are really on to something here," Chambers said. The ages were astonishing, and only the tip of the iceberg. Needless to say, all were eager to date more of these exceptionally rare bat remains found throughout the cave.

After false starts in 2019 and 2020 due to wildfires and the coronavirus epidemic, Thomas returned to the cave in 2021 and collected samples from a different set of bats. Chambers sent them off to a well-regarded lab for dating.

When her phone rang with the results, they asked her if she was sitting down.

The samples revealed ages beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating, which caps out around 50,000 years before present."

Below are a picture of one of the bats, and a second showing the profusion of gypsum "flowers" in the cave. They won't be opening this to the public anytime soon (and access is pretty tough, anyway).

Credit to Steven Eginoire for this pictures. And as the title of this post says,

Wow.

Brit amateur diggers have all the luck

 

Now, before I go further, I have to admit that there are places around the country where you can find arrowheads, or other places where it might be possible to still find Civil War artifacts, and there are still some occasional early colonies locations (like Jamestown) that provide some trinkets of yore. 

But Britain is way ahead of us when it comes to historic junk just lying around waiting for the picking-up. This account of another find is further confirmation of that observation.

‘Remarkable’ Pictish ring discovered by volunteer

"Professor of Archaeology at the university [of Aberdeen, I think], Gordon Noble, has led excavation work - funded by Historic Environment Scotland - over the last three years.

"John [last name Ralph] was digging and then came over and said ‘look what I’ve found’," Prof Noble said.

"What he handed over was truly incredible.

"We could see it was something really exciting as despite more than 1,000 years in the ground we could see glints of the possible garnet setting."

He added: "There are very few Pictish rings which have ever been discovered and those we do know about usually come from hoards which were placed in the ground deliberately for safekeeping in some way."

The ring is now with the National Museum of Scotland’s post-excavation service for analysis."

Of course, a picture of the ring is necessary.  The paired image below shows it after discovery, and then after it got cleaned up.

 

I sure hope so

 

There are a couple of space missions headed to Jupiter (and Europa) now. One is the very recently launched Europa Clipper. The other is the Jupiter Ice Moons Explorer, aka Juice, which did a flyby of Earth back in August to get a gravity assist. 

As it zipped by, a couple of the Juice instruments took a look at Earth, and determined that for at least right now, Earth is a habitable planet.  I hope humanity figures out a way to keep it in that condition.

Juice confirms that Earth is habitable

"ESA Juice project scientist Olivier Witasse says: “We are obviously not surprised by these results… it would have been extremely concerning to find out that Earth was not habitable! But they indicate that MAJIS [the Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer) and SWI [the Submillimeter Wave Instrument] will work very successfully at Jupiter, where they will help us investigate whether the icy moons could be potential habitats for past or present life.”

MAJIS took a look at the Pacific Ocean:

The Juice mission now heads to Venus, then will loop past Earth two more times before finally heading toward Jupiter. You have to be patient to be a mission scientist with these deep runs. Some of us might not make it that long (2031 is the slated arrival year).  I hope to still be around then.

As a note, both Juice and the Europa Clipper have really large solar panels. No one has the courage to launch nuclear-powered satellites into space anymore. 

Michelle Keegan: still married, still incredible

 

I haven't said a great deal about Michelle Keegan lately. I've been waiting to see if all the buzz from Fool Me Once turned into something bigger; quite a bit was said, but I haven't heard about any major deals. She was in an short-run TV series called Ten Pound Poms, which will have a Season 2, but nothing else is in the works, except for a return engagement in Brassic (which looks amusing, wish I could watch it).

There's something I've been thinking about writing regarding her, but it's a bit longer than my usual, and I haven't found the time for it. It's a speculative piece, and still could be applicable. Probably not for long, though.

But this isn't about that. It's about her red-carpet appearance at the British National Television Awards. She showed up looking totally awesome in black, and with her husband, who made sure everybody knew what a great thing he's got by giving her a public kiss. Sigh. 

See below.

The Wolf Covered Bridge

 

Being interested in all things Wolf, I am sad to report that I just found out about this place. Now I have to contrive a way to visit it.

The Wolf Covered Bridge (Knox County, Illinois).  It's northwest of Peoria.

According to this simple website, "The original bridge 234 feet long, 11 feet wide and spanned 102 feet."

What's there now is a replica; the original caught fire and burned down on August 1st, 1994. 

The replica bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Lighthouse of the Week, October 13-19, 2024: Faro Cabo de Hornos, Chile

 

There are a few places that might be called the "End of the Earth". Cape Horn (Cabo de Hornos) in Patagonia (the Chile side) is one of them.  Famously a hard place to go around in a ship, the necessity for which was reduced by the Panama Canal, Cape Horn is a real place that legends surround.

And it has a lighthouse. The lighthouse, and the Cape Horn monument, aren't exactly on Cape Horn -- I think the powers-that-be decided the real cape should be kept pristine and natural. So the lighthouse and the monument are one point over on the Isla del Hornos, which you can see here. Zoom out to place it in Patagonia and southern Chile.

Now we learn about it. The lighthouse has been modified, as you will read from the Lighthouse Directory excepts.

"1991 (reconstructed in 2006). Active; focal plane 61.5 m (202 ft); white flash every 5 s. 11 m (36 ft) round cylindrical steel tower with lantern and gallery, originally painted with red and white bands, now incorporated into a 1-story brick station building. ... The station building was built in 2006. A sculpture and a monument near the lighthouse are memorials to the many sailors who have died "rounding the Horn." This is the world's southernmost traditional lighthouse, the true Lighthouse at the End of the World; it stands in latitude 55º 57.9' S."

Another website with info: 

Tierra del Fuego / Isla Hornos / Faro Monumental de Cabo de Hornos (Cape Horn) -- World of Lighthouses

 This is what it looked like before they built a building around it.

And what it looks like now, with four pictures below. There are many pictures of this lighthouse, but a lot of them are commercial (iStock, Getty, etc.)

 

Not a surprising conclusion

 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) does amazing things. And it also does very expensive things. Furthermore, those very expensive things have commonly become even more expensive as they are being built, modified, delayed, redesigned, and finally reach the point where they can (usually) be launched.  Not everything NASA makes is launched into space; they make communications antennas and airborne instruments and do tests and models and lots of things like that -- but the expensive stuff is usually the stuff that ends up in space, hopefully, and works, also hopefully.  Usually it works, but not all the time, and that can make things even more expensive, too.

So, given all this expensiveness, it isn't surprising that a report about NASA concluded that NASA isn't going to be able to keep doing business-as-usual as expenses go up and budgets stay flat.

Underfunded, aging NASA may be on unsustainable path, report warns
NASA is not focused enough on the future, fails to think strategically and has a mismatch between ambitions and budget, says a sweeping report by aerospace experts.

"NASA pursues spectacular missions. It has sent swarms of robotic probes across the solar system and even into interstellar space. Astronauts have continuously been in orbit for more than two decades. The most ambitious program, Artemis, aims to put astronauts back on the moon in a few short years. And long-term, NASA hopes to put astronauts on Mars.

But a truism in the industry is that space is hard. The new report contends that NASA has a mismatch between its ambitions and its budget, and needs to pay attention to fundamentals such as fixing its aging infrastructure and retaining in-house talent. “NASA’s overall physical infrastructure is already well beyond its design life, and this fraction continues to grow,” the report states."

Despite all that, NASA just launched the Europa Clipper. Actually, SpaceX launched it, but NASA built it and operates it. Hopefully all the way to Europa (see below for what that might look like). 

Of course she is

 

Nina Agdal very recently gave birth to her child (a girl) with Logan Paul just a couple of days ago. 

But before that, she posed nude and pregnant. Being a supermodel, that seems a requirement.

If you want to see that picture (actually a couple of them), check the article below.

Logan Paul's pregnant fiancée Nina Agdal, 32, poses nude on a rock as she shows off her blossoming bump

Here's two other less revealing pictures of her in the midst of being pregnant.

Bepi-Colombo's fourth flyby

 

There's so much space news these days -- back in early September, the Bepi-Colombo mission from the European Space Agency made its fourth of sixth flybys of Mercury, with the eventual goal of going into orbit around Mercury in November 2026 and then performing lots of measurements.

There's a fun video from the flyby below. 

Lighthouse of the Week, October 6-12, 2024: Main Duck Island Lighthouse, Ontario, Canada

 

Back in the Great Lakes region for this week's lighthouse, which is at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. There's both a Main Duck and False Duck Island in that area, which both have lighthouses.

Maybe next week I'll take a look at the lighthouse on False Duck Island, but this week, it's the Main Duck.

Here is the location of that lighthouse, zoomed way way out for geographical navigation.

The Lighthouse Directory tells us the following about it:

"1914. Active; focal plane 23.5 m (77 ft); white flash every 6 s. 24.5 m (80 ft) octagonal concrete tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; lantern and gallery are red. Abandoned fog signal building and other structures in poor condition. ... Owned by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles from 1941 to 1959, the island has been owned by Parks Canada since 1977 and was added to Thousand Islands National Park in 1998. Located at the western end of the island."

Another website is Main Duck Island, ON (Lighthouse Friends)

Pictures are below.

WHAM! (a long time ago)

 

While we've currently got a comet in the skies, a new space probe going to visit where NASA slammed a little asteroid to see what would happen, a short-term mini-moon, and hopefully a launch to Europa coming up -- this article describes a big hit on the Jovian Galilean moon Ganymede.

Colossal Asteroid, 20 Times the Size of Dinosaur-Killer, Struck Solar System’s Largest Moon 4 Billion Years Ago

"The researcher [planetologist Naoyuki Hirata] found the collision didn’t just reorient the moon; it likely also had a lasting effect on Ganymede’s internal structure. The heat generated by the crash could have influenced the development of the moon’s subsurface ocean, a body of water hidden beneath its icy shell. This ocean is thought to contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined, making Ganymede an intriguing target for future exploration.

“The giant impact must have had a significant impact on the early evolution of Ganymede, but the thermal and structural effects of the impact on the interior of Ganymede have not yet been investigated at all,” Hirata said."

The impact is posited as the cause of the mysterious furrows on part of the moon's surface, some of which are shown below.

Ganymede from the Juno probe

Aren't we done now?

 

By what it says in this article, physics should be over.  After all, isn't the "Theory of Everything" what they've been seeking for decades?

Magical equation unites quantum physics, Einstein’s general relativity in a first

" “We proved that the Einstein field equation from general relativity is actually a relativistic quantum mechanical equation,” the researchers note in their study.

In simple words, this new framework connects the science that governs the macroscopic world with that of the microscopic world.

Therefore, it has the potential to explain every physical phenomenon known to humanity ranging from the mysterious dark matter in space to the photons emitted by your phone’s flashlight." "

See, I told you so. It's all over. Take down the party decorations.

But let's see what they actually did.

“The obtained equation is covariant in space-time and invariant with respect to any Planck scale. Therefore, the constants of the universe can be reduced to only two quantities: Planck length and Planck time,” the researchers note."

Of course, that should be obvious.

If you want to do the reading, here's the article.

On the same origin of quantum physics and general relativity from Riemannian geometry and Planck scale formalism

Schematic illustration of the Riemannian manifold of positive definite matrices (but that's pretty obvious, too)

Young and beautiful and talented

 

Daisy Edgar-Jones got noticed (which is a mild statement) for her role in Normal People, which required nudity and intimate scenes, but she's more than that, as she showed in Twisters. 

On a recent red carpet at the Toronto Film Festival, she showed she's got a lot of what it takes to get noticed in show business.

Daisy Edgar-Jones flashes her cleavage in a plunging sheer baby blue gown as she attends On Swift Horses premiere at Toronto Film Festival

The Perseverance rover is going to climb

 

As the scientific rewards from the Mars Perseverance Rover (yes, it's still roving Mars) continue to accrue, this Gizmodo article indicates that the going is going to get tougher and rougher -- and the rewards could become greater.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Is Finally Getting to the Main Event on Mars 

The rover is set to tackle Mars' ancient hydrothermal sites, searching for clues to the planet's watery past and potential ancient life.

"In the upcoming science campaign, Perseverance will have to overcome slopes of up to 23 degrees and a climb of about 1,000 feet (300 meters) to summit the rim of Jezero, which billions of years ago contained a massive lake."

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Long Climb Up Martian Crater Rim

That article provided the image below, which shows where the rover is going. First stop is Dox Castle. Then it apparently exits the crater at Aurora Park, and ensuing goals are Pico Turquino and Witch Hazel Hill.

(And since I'm posting this a few weeks after it was published, I went to the Mars Perseverance Rover website and looked at the image that shows where the rover is now. And it looks to me like it's nearly to Aurora Park already.)

Think about it

 

From this article in the New York Times:

Conservative Moms, Charmed by Trump, Would Rather Avoid His Misogyny

Former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a convention of the Moms for Liberty in Washington.

"His campaign stop on Friday was a reminder that Mr. Trump often gets away with doing and saying things that would spell certain death for any other politician. He can denigrate veterans and then be celebrated by the military. He can brag about sexual assault, boast about walking in on Miss Universe contestants en déshabillé, be found liable for sexual abuse by a jury of six men and three women, and still be celebrated as a protector and respecter of women and children by school board mothers concerned about a society they feel has become overly sexualized."

It doesn't make sense. None of this does.  

Oh, and if you didn't know, en déshabillé means "in a state of undress". And Trump bragged about being able to do this. And Christians want to elect him.

It doesn't make any sense at all.

If we need a reminder:

‘Don’t Worry, Ladies, I’ve Seen It All Before’: Teen Pageant Contestants Say Donald Trump Walked in on Them Changing

A slice of history regarding the Marienberg fortress

 

I accidentally encountered a video showing the Marienberg Fortress in Germany, and wanted to learn more about it.  So I'm providing some of what I learned about it here.

It's located in Würzburg, Germany. That puts it exactly here. The map needs to be zoomed way, way out to show that it is located southeast of Frankfurt and northwest of Nuremberg, roughly halfway between them. The fortress overlooks the river Main, which is the longest tributary (525 km) of the Rhine.

So the river must have been, and still is, important. Why is the Marienberg Fortress in Würzburg?

Palaces > Würzburg > Marienberg Fortress tells us:

"The original castle on the Marienberg, a hill which was first settled in the late Bronze Age, was probably a small fort built early in the 8th century by the Franconian-Thuringian dukes. The circular Marienkapelle is one of the oldest church buildings in South Germany and dates from around 1000. From 1200 an unusually large castle was built, which was extended during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For half a millennium, from around 1250 to 1720, the Marienberg was the ruling seat of the Würzburg prince-bishops, who also held the title of Duke of East Franconia.

Following the storming of the castle by the Swedes in 1631, Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn built a circle of massive bastions, which are the dominant feature of Marienberg Fortress. In 1945 the fortress was almost completely burned out, and its reconstruction was only completed in 1990.

St Mary’s Church (Marienkirche), which dates back to AD 706, the forty-metre-high keep and the well house with a cistern over 100 metres deep are impressive monuments to an over 1000-year history."

If you haven't seen it, I've got a couple of pictures of it below.

Thoughts about the mass shooting in Georgia

 

No, they aren't my thoughts. These thoughts are from an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post from Eugene Robinson.

Kemp is wrong. This is the time to talk policy.

Thought 1:

"But popular, common-sense gun laws might have prevented this tragedy. And this is precisely the moment when we should be debating and implementing those policies — before some other American community joins the mournful list that includes Newtown, Conn.; Parkland, Fla.; Uvalde, Tex.; and so many others. The list to which Winder is now added."

Thought 2:

"Kemp and the Republican-controlled state legislature should immediately pass a “safe storage” bill requiring firearms to be kept under lock and key. Such laws, thus far adopted by 26 states, have been found to have widespread public support, according to the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. One was proposed by a Democrat last year in the Georgia state legislature, but Kemp and his party refused to move it forward."

Thought 3:

"Twenty-one states and D.C. have “red flag” laws that allow authorities to seek court orders to temporarily confiscate weapons from people at serious risk of harming themselves or others. Having to visit a home to investigate the threat of a school shooting sounds serious to me. Even Florida and Texas — bastions of gun rights — have red flag laws. Georgia does not."

Thought 5:

"Wherever the rifle came from, a majority of Americans — 61 percent, according to a Fox News poll — support a ban on assault weapons. They were prohibited from 1994 to 2004, and the Second Amendment survived just fine. But the ban was allowed to expire, and Republicans in Congress have blocked any attempt to renew it."

Thought 6, not from the op-ed, but from me:

Stop the madness. Elect Harris/Walz. Pass sensible gun legislation.

Save lives.

 

Documenting the decline of the Titanic

 

News about the Titanic was dominated by the tragic (and preventable) loss of the Titan submersible. Since then, quietly, the wreck has been visited by a more professional and quieter operation (RMS Titanic Inc.), that is very carefully document the wreck as things slowly fall apart.

The Washington Post had a recent article about this effort (and there are several other articles about this online).  After they were basically done, they managed to find an iconic statue on their last dive.

Titanic divers find long-sought statue, signs of accelerating decay

"In 1986, an explorer captured an image of “Diana of Versailles,” a 2-foot-tall bronze statue of the Roman goddess, lying in the debris of the RMS Titanic, more than 12,000 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean. Diana’s exact location was hard to pinpoint from that photo, and the site of the shipwreck was still shrouded in secrecy, so explorers who might have seen her over the years didn’t disclose where she was.

Until now. On their latest expedition, researchers with RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based company with the sole rights to salvage from the wreck, rediscovered Diana’s precise location and photographed the statue, which once stood in the ship’s first class lounge. The images are among more than 2 million captured on the expedition this summer, the first since 2010. The expedition also revealed that a section of railing from the Titanic’s bow had fallen to the seafloor, a change that researchers say probably happened over the last two years."

What it looks like on the seafloor:

And above the fireplace on the ship:

Lighthouse of the Week, September 29 - October 5, 2024: Point Fermin Lighthouse, California, USA

 

This is the last in my series on Los Angeles area lighthouses. I wouldn't call this the "best", but I think it qualifies as the most interesting in the area.

This week's featured light is the Point Fermin lighthouse. It's also in Palos Verdes, and it's pretty close to the Angel's Gate lighthouse that's on the breakwater at the entrance to Los Angeles harbor. In some sense, this could be the "official" Los Angeles harbor lighthouse.

Location-wise, it's right here.

The Lighthouse Directory has a long entry; below are some considerable extractions.

"1874 (Paul J. Pelz). Inactive since 1942. 30 ft (9 m) square cylindrical wood tower rising from 2-story wood Italianate Victorian keeper's house. The active light (focal plane 120 ft (36.5 m); white flash every 10 s) is mounted on a 13 ft (4 m) pole. ... The original lantern was removed in 1942 but a wood replica lantern was installed in 1974. In December 2006 Malibu realtor Louis T. Busch donated the original 4th order Fresnel lens to the society for display at the lighthouse. Building painted white with gray trim; lantern and gallery black. ... Saved from demolition in 1972 and refurbished in 1972-74 by local preservationists, the lighthouse was then used for many years as the park superintendent's residence. In 2002 a $2.6 million project accomplished a complete restoration of the lighthouse. A chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, the Point Fermin Lighthouse Society , supports the lighthouse and has opened it to visitors. In 2012 the lighthouse became available for transfer under NHLPA. The City of Los Angeles and three nonprofit organizations applied for ownership and in January 2015 ownership was awarded to the city. After various delays ownership was transferred formally in December 2018."

Point Fermin Lighthouse Society

Point Fermin, CA (Lighthouse Friends)

A video, and then pictures, are shown below.